Speaking of DAW's and the ability to use all the software and harware on the marked...
I would go for an Intel system.
I can recomend the 865 chipset witch i use securely with a Lynx AES16, Sequoia and a SCSI card + Plextor burner.
I use a Celeron 2.0GHz at the moment... but then again i'm not using plugs very often.
The motherboard is a FIC and has 1G of kingston on it.

The reason i mentioned my setup is that for the first time I really feel that my system is running good.
The first PC i had couldn't do MIDI... and that was a pc with 440BX and all the right parts etc...
The second was also a PC with the right parts(I thought): 875P P4 2.8GHz etc. With that PC I had to deactivate almost anyting in the BIOS to use it as a DAW including USB2... I also had to do a special install of XP to make it work :?

Now the 3rd one works untill now perfectly and it is the one listed with parts on top of my posting 8-)

Best Regards,

jazzman wrote: Would anyone have any comments concerning the nvidia chipset? I am considering it as well as an AMD 64 for a DAW I will assemble.

I'm a newbie.... Great site!... very informative

Nvidia NForce 3 chipset is supposed to be very good.

For Intel Socket 478 look at Intel 865PE and 875P chipset motherboards.

Dpn't ignore AMD systems. Intel is fine, but these days there is absolutely no risk in building an AMD system for a DAW. They are cheaper and the 64 bit family is getting acolades from those who have built them, including those who have used them in DAWs. I have built about 10 AMD based systems mainly for Reason, Cubase VST and SX and Wavelab. Two of those systems are mine, one of which uses the nVidia nForce chipsets. Note that the 64 AMDs have the memory controller on-dye (onboard) which makes for very fast and efficient memory access, and also means that the choice of chipset is really down to feature set only, and less on performance. This is very little difference in performance between the chipsets for 64 bit systems between SiS, nVidia and Via.

To maintain that the only safe way to build a DAW is to go Intel is rubbish.

AMD systems are very well handled, they can run a various amount of plugins. I have an AMD atholon XP 3200+ with an nvidia nforce2 chipset and have had no problems. just watch you dont backup your hardrive with crap you dont need. its better to have a system that this dedicated to just audio and to make use for all of your audio applications and plugins. and minimize the use of programs in the background. if you do that the nvidia chipset and AMD will run great for you.